How To Build a Project Management Solution Using Plans in Power Apps

Project management often involves scattered tools like spreadsheets, emails, and separate apps for tracking tasks, approvals, and reporting. Teams waste time switching contexts and manually building automations for notifications or dashboards.

In this hands-on session, Paul Stork (Microsoft MVP for 18 years) demonstrates how to use the Power Apps Plan Designer to generate a complete project management solution. He covers prerequisites, the five-step workflow, a full demo building tables, apps, flows, Power Pages, and Power BI reports, plus limitations and workarounds for standard Microsoft 365 licenses.

What You Will Learn

• How to check prerequisites like enabling a Dataverse database, required security roles such as system admin or environment maker, and Azure AI region availability
• The five core steps in Plan Designer: describing the business problem, defining requirements and user stories, mapping processes, modeling data, and generating solution artifacts
• Inputting project management requirements and editing AI-generated user roles, stories, and process diagrams
• Refining data models by adding relationships, columns, and users directly in the Plan Designer interface
• Generating and reviewing artifacts including Dataverse tables, canvas or model-driven apps, cloud flows for emails, Power Pages sites, Copilot agents, and Power BI reports
• Customizing generated components like flows and apps after export, using Copilot for further refinements
• Workarounds for non-Dataverse backends such as recreating data models in SharePoint lists and handling licensing with developer environments or pay-as-you-go options

Key Takeaways

1. Always start in a developer environment for prototyping. Paul emphasizes using free developer tenants to experiment without premium licensing risks, then migrate to production once refined.
2. Iterate prompts and edits in each step. Refine the initial business description and manually adjust AI outputs in requirements, process, and data stages to match exact needs and avoid rework.
3. Commit tables strategically after data modeling. Review relationships and columns before committing to Dataverse, as structural changes become harder post-generation.
4. Leverage generated artifacts as starters. Export apps, flows, and pages serve as customizable templates, saving weeks of manual setup for project tracking solutions.

About the Speaker

Paul Stork is the owner and principal architect at Don't Panic Consulting. A Microsoft MVP for 18 years, with 15 in SharePoint and the last three in business applications, he authored Learning Power Automate for O'Reilly and specializes in Power Platform solutions using SharePoint or Excel backends for Microsoft 365 users.

Who Should Watch This

This session suits Microsoft 365 admins and Power Platform builders who manage projects but lack time for full custom development. You will gain practical steps to prototype solutions quickly if you have standard licenses and want to avoid premium Dataverse costs initially.

Power users familiar with canvas apps will appreciate the expansion to full-stack solutions including flows and pages. Skip if you routinely build enterprise Dataverse solutions, though Paul's SharePoint workarounds may still help hybrid scenarios.